Surgical procedures are used to treat and cure a wide range of diseases, conditions, and injuries. Surgery often requires access to internal tissue through open or minimally invasive surgical procedures. The term “minimally invasive” refers to all types of minimally invasive surgical procedures, including endoscopic, laparoscopic, arthroscopic, natural orifice intraluminal, and natural orifice transluminal procedures. Minimally invasive surgery can have numerous advantages compared to traditional open surgical procedures, including reduced trauma, faster recovery, reduced risk of infection, and reduced scarring.
Whether minimally invasive or not, there are a number of surgical procedures in which it can be desirable to form a working channel in a patient to provide access to a surgical site within the patient. One such example is orthopedic or neurologic surgical procedures, including, e.g., spinal fusion procedures where it can be desirable to form a working channel through a patient's tissue to access their vertebrae and/or the intervertebral discs disposed between adjacent vertebrae.
A variety of surgical access devices are known, including various devices that are anchored to a surgical table upon which a patient is disposed, or devices that penetrate tissue without being anchored to any other structure. In such arrangements, the access device may be inadequately supported, or the access device may undesirably move relative to the patient if the patient moves relative to the operating table. Accordingly, there is a need for improved access port stabilization devices, systems, and methods that can streamline the instrumentation and methodology of various surgical procedures.